Santiago is one of the cities with the best quality of life in Latin America
Published: November 30, 2011
The report uses New York as the city of reference for the comparison of different levels of quality of life; therefore it values aspects such as public services, social, cultural, economic, political and social environment, the educational level and the environment.
Confirming the results of previous studies, the city of Santiago ranks as one of the major cities with the best quality of life in Latin America.
This was confirmed by the "Worldwide Quality of Life Study 2011" issued by the consulting company Mercer, awarding the national capital with the 90th place worldwide.
In Central and South America, the best positioned cities in the list are Pointe a Pitre (Caribbean), in a respectable 63rd position, followed by San Juan in Puerto Rico (72nd), Montevideo (77th), Buenos Aires (81st), Santiago (90th) and Panama City (93rd).
Further down we find Monterrey (104th), San Jose (105th), Asuncion (112th), Lima (118th), Mexico City (121st), Quito (124th), Santo Domingo (129th), Bogota (130th), Guatemala (142th), La Paz (147th), Caracas (164th), Managua (166th), San Salvador (168th) and, ranking near the bottom of the list, La Habana (189th).
However, the European cities with a better quality of life are Vienna (1st), Zurich (2nd), Munich (4th), Düsseldorf (5th), Frankfort (7th), Geneva (8th), Berne and Copenhagen (that share the ninth place), as well as Amsterdam (12th), Hamburg (16th), Berlin (17th), Luxemburg (19th) and Stockholm (20th).
Some other cities that rank well are Brussels (22nd), Paris (30th), Oslo (33rd), Helsinki (35th) and London (38th). The first Spanish cities that classified in this ranking were Barcelona, in the 40th position and Madrid in the 43rd.
On the other hand, the major cities with the worst quality of life are Khartoum, Puerto Principe, N'Djamena, Bangui and Bagdad, which is in last place in the general and the personal safety ranking.
The Canadian cities are the American major cities that take the highest place; especially Vancouver (which shares the fifth place with the German city, Düsseldorf), Ottawa (14th), Toronto (15th) and Montreal (22nd), all of them are within the first twenty-five positions. In the United States, Honolulu (29th) and San Francisco (30th) are the cities with the best quality of life.
The study also measures the level of personal safety in each city, which takes into consideration factors such as the level of crime, internal stability, law enforcement effectiveness and the international relationships of the county, among others.